"Worshippers"at a memorial service for Ante Pavelic in Zagreb, Croatia. Photo by Una Hajdari.The persistent beating of rain on a particularly gloomy winter evening in Zagreb did not stop a crowd of devout churchgoers from gathering in front of the Basilica of the Heart of Jesus in the center of the Croatian capital. For twenty years, this towering Jesuit church has been the setting for an annual mass held on the anniversary of the death of Ante Pavelic, the head of one of the most murderous regimes in Europe during the Second World War.
The scene unraveling in front of the church had a distinctly conspiratorial feel to it. While the men and occasional woman huddled together, speaking in hushed tones, a group of policemen across the street watch on patiently. The mass has attracted protesters in the past years and is often covered by local media outlets, even though the congregation and the Jesuit order itself represent a minority within the wider Croatian population.
Openly “worshipping” Pavelic is not commonplace in modern Croatian society, and the use of paraphernalia and symbols associating to the Independent State of Croatia (cro. NDH), the official name of the WWII Nazi puppet state that he headed, is also punishable by law. This did not stop some of the men seen later sitting in the front pews of the church from sporting t-shirts bearing the recognizable letter “U”, the emblem of the fiercely nationalist Ustasa organization formed by Pavelic, and others gathered in front of the church from exchanging calendars depicting the image of Pavelic and a map of Greater Croatia.
